Poll: Game of Thrones : Read the Books, Should I watch the Show?

[TheIronRuler]

I've read three of the first books in the song of ice and fire series by George R R Martin and I've been courted by many a friend and acquaintance to watch the show together. They want to see my reaction when I see the show - the setting, the characters and the scenes depicted in the books made a reality. Not seeing the mountain fighting the red viper nor whether Lord Tywin does in fact not shit gold made me disappointed they cut the book into two seasons, but browsing through the internet I watched several videos of the HBO show. In the few scenes I saw it's more toned down compared to the books, details are forgotten and even characters are amiss. Changes are to be had, of course, but Tyrion in my eyes wasn't supposed to be the sexy darling anti-hero my friend keeps fawning over, but a shrewd and broken little man that tried to do his best in the worst of times for his family - and succeeded, only to watch it all go to waste as his closest allies and family die, leave, shun or betray him. Even when salvation comes, it does with a price too heavy for him to bear. In the end he was left truly alone, and in his desperation he finally made his revenge for being charged for the greatest crime of all - being a dwarf.

I also heard that Robb the Wolf falls for a different sort of girl, which strikes me as odd... Is Martin rewriting his own pieces through the show, or are the creators simply working their charm and exchanging the young wolf's honor for love?

Anyhow, this humble user might have offended the gods by adding more than what mere mortals would need to know of the plot, but I assure you I gave away no spoilers.

CAPTCHA: 'run away!'. Captcha, you're so clever - winter is coming, and the fan rage in upon us.

 

[Colour Scientist]

As someone who read the books first, I highly recommend the show.

It's incredibly entertaining, just accept that there're going to be variations because it's a tv adaptation of the books, it's not going to be word for word.
You're not going to enjoy it if you're going to nitpick everything that's a teensy bit different.
I wouldn't argue for a second that it's been toned down, it's just a little different.
They added characters to make it more watchable as a show and took away characters that wouldn't work on-screen.


In my opinion, Tywin, Tyrion and Sansa are better characters in the show than they are in the books.
I would also spoiler the Tyrion stuff, there's nothing specific there but it hints at things to come.

Also, Robb's wife in the show isn't all that different from the books.
Nothing to get upset over anyway.

 

[Legion]

Unless you are a purist who cannot stand changes in adaptations, it is definitely worth watching. Personally I prefer the books, but certain parts do come across much better on screen, especially as the casting and acting is fantastic all around.

The tone is certainly different in places, and I am not always pleased about that, but as far as adaptations go, I think it is a pretty good one. As Colour Scientist said, they made it work for television. Some ideas are great to read about, but just wouldn't really work visually.

My only real gripe is how little the events prior to the current time-line have been discussed. Practically nothing about Rhaegar Targaryen, Lyanna Stark, Ned's father and brother, the Reeds and so on. I felt that they were quite important for character development for the Starks and Targaryens, as they showed the different ways people remembered history. But they also don't really "need" to be there either, so I can understand them being cut out.

I'd just watch the first episode and see if you like it, it's not like you have anything to lose.

 

[Raikas]

I read the books first and I still enjoy the show (although to be fair, by the time the show started it had been years since I'd read the first book, so it might feel different for someone who read them more recently).

Sure, they've cut out a lot of secondary characters and made quite a few people nicer (and/or nicer-looking, as pointed out), but it's still entertaining even without having plot-based suspense keeping you interested. I get the impression that as the show goes on, it will diverge even more from the source, and I think that makes the show more interesting on its own even if the main plot points stay the same.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Unless you are a purist who cannot stand changes in adaptations, it is definitely worth watching. Personally I prefer the books, but certain parts do come across much better on screen, especially as the casting and acting is fantastic all around.

The tone is certainly different in places, and I am not always pleased about that, but as far as adaptations go, I think it is a pretty good one. As Colour Scientist said, they made it work for television. Some ideas are great to read about, but just wouldn't really work visually.

I more or less agree with this summation, and believe they've done a fairly good job of bringing a series I considered fundamentally unfilmable to the screen, but you don't need to be a purist to get annoyed by the changes. In almost every circumstance where the books differ substantially from the show, the show is weaker for it. In some cases much weaker. And of course, the show is missing the intricate depth/context/history that makes the novels rich, although they can hardly be faulted for that. They're already hammered for time even with the profoundly stripped down version of events they serve up. Of all the shows I enjoy watching, none are dogged by pacing issues even a quarter as dire as the ones that plague GoT.

That, and I'd like to see the show's enormous success translate into a larger budget. Some of the set pieces scenes in the books have either been cut completely or trimmed down to cringe worthy results. This was most calamitous in season 3, where the battle at the Fist of the First Men was dropped completely, and rather than a nightmarish Wight/Walker pursuit through the dead of night we got a bunch of mildly peeved looking Night's Watch stumbling around on an overcast afternoon.

 

[WWWLUCIFERCOM]

As someone who read the books I can agree with you about your complaints but I say watch the show its a good watch yes they pretty people up (except for Asha Greyjoy)

 

[Alssadar]

Reading the book, and then watching the show is nice.
Sure, there's some inconsistencies held within, but, nonetheless, still gets the basis of plot and other actions executed in good detail.
It's nice to get visual representation of the characters in all their multitude, as well as having the connections in the book to know who all of them are.

 

[Lord Garnaat]

I would say yes. The HBO adaptation isn't perfect, but it's the best version of The Song of Ice and Fire that we're likely to see in our lives. It's limited by the usual problems of adaptive works (characters and stories get cut or simplified, not enough budget to show things properly, strange changes made to appeal to a TV audience), but it's still great most of the time and capable of some real brilliance as well - Charles Dance's performance is simply the definitive Tywin, no doubts about it.

I should warn you, however, that several changes they made can be pretty grating. The people who make the show have frequently expressed how much they dislike Stannis Baratheon, and they make that painfully obvious in the show. Stephen Dillane is a great actor, but the writers insist on making his character a much more villainous and unsympathetic person than in the books, which was particularly distressing to me. Stannis is my favorite character in the books, and one of the most heroic people in the series as well, so watching him be portrayed as an evil pervert who burns people alive on a whim and is completely subservient to Melisandre is very irritating.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

It's a pretty good show, and worth a look just to see how well it translates. And Peter Dinklage does an AMAZING Tyrion, even if it is by necessity truncated a little bit to fit the format, but that's alright.

Be warned, though. Catelyn Stark loses all of her badassery (as far as up to the Red Wedding, anyway) and is given the role of being an annoyingly archetypal character who only wants to get back to her children, instead of, you know, the tough-as-iron, politically savvy matron who organizes almost a quarter of the alliances in the books for a time. Little Finger goes from being that beautifully Machiavellian everybody-wants-to-be-his-friend, plots-within-plots-within-plots schemer kind of character into a friendless, transparent moron who threatens Cersei to her face. And while it's nice to see him on-screen, instead of just hearing letters about his great victories every few chapters, all of the nobility of Robb Stark's character is thrown out the fucking window by giving him a cute foreign girl to fawn over, entirely changing the character's motivation (and also why GRRMartin insisted that the girl in the show and the girl in the books were given two separate names, to completely distinguish the two), all in the name of trying to make him a more rightful-looking king to the viewers. And, though this is not that big of an issue, they way they manage to draw out Daenerys' story so that things actually happen for her is laughable.

Other than that, there's not too many issues. Some things happen slightly differently, but that's the course for adaptations. Good show, not counting the way they throw a few characters through the "make them more bland and uninteresting" press.

 

[BunnyKillBot]

As somebody who read all the books first, and then watched all three seasons so far, yes, definately go watch it. Imo, the, the tv series is way better than the books. The books are not particularly brilliant fantasy literature but what makes them interesting are the complex and diverse characters. The show does a great job of exploring the chracters and bringing them to life on the big screen. All the rest is just fluff and nonsense written by a man determined to destroy fantasy tropes just for the sake of crushing your expectations.

 

[Xeorm]

I found the series to be in general very good at illustrating what happens in the books. Tyrion himself is a great dwarf, and one of the closer portrayals. At least make sure to watch the scene early on where he slaps the brat.

You'll certainly see quite a few changes, but I think that they're most often due to the constraints of a different format or that of time. For example, inner monologues don't work at all well in a TV format, so you'll find that some actions need to be changed, but they're done well and manage to get across the intent, though not always the most accurate of portrayals. Aria is likely hit the worst by this, given how much she monologues.

Only thing I didn't like was Daenarys's storyline. Lots of changes there, and they really miss the mark of what I read, and make her side fairly boring.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I watched the show first, and reading the books pads out the time inbetween the seasons.

But they aren't that different, chances are, if you like one, you will like the other, and in some cases, the show is very accurate in its depiction of characters (Sean Bean was an excellent choice for Ned Stark).

The one thing I will say though, is that everyone is a lot younger in the books than they seem in the TV show, so its a bit weird seeing Rob as a 20-something, whereas in the books he is like, 16.

 

[[email protected]]

The T.V. Show has been pretty great but some of the portrayals of the characters have been questionable in my opinion. Jon Snow was particularly mishandled in my opinion as the show has a tendency to portray him as a whiny screw-up which undercut's the book's portrayal of him as a strong and admirable leader. It would have been easy to keep Jon's character consistent with the books and it would have increased the internal consistencey of the story considering how Jon's story unfolds in the future books.

 

[GrimTuesday]

Unless you are a purist who cannot stand changes in adaptations, it is definitely worth watching. Personally I prefer the books, but certain parts do come across much better on screen, especially as the casting and acting is fantastic all around.

The tone is certainly different in places, and I am not always pleased about that, but as far as adaptations go, I think it is a pretty good one. As Colour Scientist said, they made it work for television. Some ideas are great to read about, but just wouldn't really work visually.

I more or less agree with this summation, and believe they've done a fairly good job of bringing a series I considered fundamentally unfilmable to the screen, but you don't need to be a purist to get annoyed by the changes. In almost every circumstance where the books differ substantially from the show, the show is weaker for it. In some cases much weaker. And of course, the show is missing the intricate depth/context/history that makes the novels rich, although they can hardly be faulted for that. They're already hammered for time even with the profoundly stripped down version of events they serve up. Of all the shows I enjoy watching, none are dogged by pacing issues even a quarter as dire as the ones that plague GoT.

That, and I'd like to see the show's enormous success translate into a larger budget. Some of the set pieces scenes in the books have either been cut completely or trimmed down to cringe worthy results. This was most calamitous in season 3, where the battle at the Fist of the First Men was dropped completely, and rather than a nightmarish Wight/Walker pursuit through the dead of night we got a bunch of mildly peeved looking Night's Watch stumbling around on an overcast afternoon.

This is pretty much spot on. The show is solid, but in many cases the changes they make are pretty nonsensical and would have worked better if they had just stuck to the source material. I know that it was impossible to do everything from the books due to time and budget constraints, so it has allowed me to not get too worked up over most stuff, but taking stuff out to put in weaker material really gets my goat. Also, I could do without the nudity which seems to be based around meeting a boob quota.

Good show, but there are thing that are rather annoying about it.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Yeah you should, it's almost completely true to the source material. Some things are shown from a different perspective or aren't shown as much as in the books, but there are few real changes to content.

You should especially watch it because of the dialogues, those are just beautifully executed.

The one thing I will say though, is that everyone is a lot younger in the books than they seem in the TV show, so its a bit weird seeing Rob as a 20-something, whereas in the books he is like, 16.

That is indeed one of the changes. But I didn't mind it at all, because the ages in the books really don't make sense at all for the most part.

Seasons work differently in that world anyhow, so perhaps a single "year" could take much longer than it does in the real world.

 

[nohorsetown]

Eh, I dunno. Watch it if you have time to kill. It's a mixed bag, IMO. I don't see the point in taking a poll - of course it's a popular show, so most people are gonna say "OMG! Watch it right the fuck now! You don't know what you're missing!!"

Here are a bunch of my mostly-superficial, opinionated observations:

PROS: Tyrion and Tywin are both great, despite heavy changes to the former. Cersei is actually better in the show than in the books, IMO - she's actually a little bit sympathetic. The "Roz" character they made up for the show does a pretty good job of bridging together various scenes that I don't think they'd have otherwise had time for (<- I may have botched the tense in this sentence . . . but I guess I don't really care to check right now.) Hmm, let's see . . . Ma and Pa Stark are both solid portrayals, while they last. I like Varys' actor / performance well enough, and Joffrey's, and Balon Greyjoy for the one or two scenes he's in. Walder Frey and the Boltons are well-realized. Renly+Loras gets more play than in the book, and I think it works. And, at least for me, watching and spotting / analyzing differences is always a positive in itself.

CONS: Littlefinger is quite goofy. They renamed Asha "Yarra" (cuz there can't be both an Osha and an Asha, or everyone will be confused,) and the actress who plays her just doesn't convey "Ironborn" to me, at all. Everything involving Daenerys and her entourage feels like Sci-Fi Channel dreck (wait 'til you see the doof they got to play Daario -- wait, scratch that! -- my wife just informed me they re-cast him) . . . but to be fair, I couldn't stand her side of the story in the books, either. Oh yeah - and they porned it up quite a bit. And not in the "weiner, weiner" sense, as far as I could tell. I don't know what the hell South Park's getting on about, there. I think they're just homophobic. There is way more female nudity than male, and most (all?) of it is totally pointless. At one point they show us a white walker, and it's pretty damn funny-looking. They completely fucked up the House of the Undying.

 

[Something Amyss]

As someone who read the books first, I highly recommend the show.

It's incredibly entertaining, just accept that there're going to be variations because it's a tv adaptation of the books, it's not going to be word for word.

I've never got why this is such a big thing in the first place. I will almost always prefer the book, but I don't get why people expect an exact on-screen retelling of a book.

I haven't read GoT yet, but I've watched the first two seasons and have the third on pre-order. I pretty much assume I'll like the books better, but it was a Christmas gift of the series that got me into it in the first place. And my eye's been screwy, which makes reading anything for more than a few minutes difficult until it's completely healed.

But yeah. Adaptations can be fun in their own right. I don't really care if they got all the nuances of Harry Potter (though a couple of the changes were kind of funny) or Sherlock Holmes or even comics like Spider-Man and Superman right, as long as they're good movies/shows in and of themselves. And really, if you're not having fun with the Game of Thrones TV show, I have to question what is wrong with you.